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Worried about ending a sentence with a preposition?

There are 150 prepositions in the English language and my fifth grade teacher, Miss Tryon, made us memorize most of them.

For those who didn’t have a Miss Tryon in school, some of the more familiar prepositions are with, on, in, at, to, about, of, under, below, above, against, before, after, behind and across.

Back in the day — the 17th and 18th centuries — some scholars tried to make English conform to the rules of Latin. It didn’t work and was abandoned. However, the bogus idea that sentences must never end with any of the prepositions lived on.

Winston Churchill said something like this on the subject — “This is the sort of bloody nonsense up with which I will not put.”

Here are some examples from the Oxford Dictionary:
• This is the restaurant I told you about. vs. This is the restaurant about which I told you.
• Martin persuaded Lucy that there was nothing to be frightened of. vs. Martin persuaded Lucy that there was nothing of which to be frightened.
• Who were you talking to? vs. To whom were you talking?
• He wondered where she had come from. vs. He wondered from where she had come.

And here’s a story credited to reddit:

A woman was sitting in an Atlanta airport coffee shop as she waited for her flight back to Connecticut when a friendly Southern belle sat down next to her.

‘Where y’all goin’ to?’ asked the Southern belle.

The first woman sniffed and said, “I don’t answer people who end their sentences with prepositions.”